In the 1880s into the 1890s Ireland was a police state, thousands were arrested and imprisoned on flimsy, often perjured, evidence, including M.P.s and clergy. Agrarian agitation led by the Land League to get a fair deal from landlords and to achieve greater ownership of the land by those who worked it and lived on it was met with fierce repression by the State. Ireland, nominally an equal member of the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Ireland, was in effect a colony and treated as such by the British Government. Two stories illustrate the more imaginative tactics employed by the League’s management.

Two Emergencymen (Ulster Orangemen) occupying property on Castle Island since April 1889 were boycotted by the shopkeepers in Schull who refused to serve them even an ounce of tobacco until threatened with prosecution. On the night of 16 June the boat they, and their R.I.C. escort, used to get to the mainland had disappeared from the strand at Castle Island:

“disappeared from where she was lying high and dry, and has not since been seen or heard of.”

as reported by The Skibbereen Eagle 22 June 1889.

“On Monday morning the unfortunate Emergencymen and police found themselves in a peculiar dilemma, when they wanted to make for the mainland—

‘On their desolate island, all lonely and silent,

They wept themselves sick, as they sat in the cowld.'”

The stranded occupiers of the evicted tenant’s farm managed to signal their plight to “some good angel” with a flag of distress who came to their rescue and took them to the mainland where they reported the matter at the Schull R.I.C. barrack, from where a fruitless search for the missing boat was organised. When the Emergencymen and policemen returned to the island they found that the potatoes planted by the evicted tenants had been dug up and removed.

The Eagle commented that:

"The matter is causing no small amount of amusement amongst the local populace, while another section feel very much riled over the magical disappearance."

The following September, the Eagle reported that nine acres of wheat sown by James Leahy and Michael Donovan on Castle Island was removed during the absence of the Emergencymen and policemen who had gone to Schull for supplies. When they returned after their expedition they discovered that the wheat was gone. The Eagle again:

"…the police and Emergencymen frantically scoured the island in search of the missing crop. The police fruitlessly searched the houses, while the Emergencymen kept watch outside."

AND

A “Great National Meeting Near Schull” was called for 10 August, 1890. The venue was kept from the police and those who fraternised with them. The venue was Dick’s Island in Toormore Bay, barely an acre in area and as the Skibbereen Eagle described it:

"…within sight of a force of police, but yet without their presence. Full many a time and oft have the police been baffled by Nationalists in various parts of the country within recent years, but never more successfully or (to the police) more provokingly than in the present instance."

The location and time of the meeting was known to the whole district but the police did not get wind of it until late Saturday night when two reporters showed up in Schull to report on it. The police kept watch on the lodging house used by the reporters, and when they left the following morning were followed by District Inspector Lowndes in his trap accompanied by eight armed RIC in two cars.

The reporters led the policemen on a wild goose-chase, taking various roundabout routes with no obvious direction. Reporters, Lowndes, and company were met by a number of horsemen and cars going in the opposite direction. This puzzled the police who, after some discussion, decided to continue following the reporters. They then encountered Goleen PP, Fr. Forrest, also going in the opposite direction to the reporters. Surveying the traffic going west and east, the police, although now thoroughly puzzled, again decided to continue following the reporters. They then met two R.I.C. men coming towards them, who were following Fr. Forrest, a likely suspect heading to a meeting. After a brief consultation, the Schull R.I.C. party reversed course to pursue Fr. Forrest, who was, by this time, out of sight.

Groups of occasional pedestrians meandering west had been followed by the police which led them to Leamcon where they were greeted by the sight of a flotilla of boats, of every type and size, ferrying people to Dick’s Island for a meeting to be addressed by MPs Deasy and Gilhooly. No boat would carry a policeman. When District Inspector Lowndes tried to force his way onto the boat that was to carry Fr. O’Driscoll, CC, Goleen, the priest told the boatman that he was not obliged to take Lowndes, and that if he forced his way onto the boat, he was not obliged to take him to the island. Lowndes warned Fr. O’Driscoll as to his behaviour and language:

“…but the priest minded him not, sprang into the boat, and was off to the island amid loud cheers. The police were forced to watch proceedings from the shore without the opportunity to take notes on the speeches made.”

If you would like to know more about the Land League and agrarian agitation on the Mizen: www.buythebook.ie/this-is-the-mizen/